All Saints, Eyke, Suffolk
This village straggles the chaotic street between Woodbridge and Snape considering the fact that the closure of the nearby American airbase, it is substantially quieter than it made use of to be, though when I arrived this way on a sub-zero day in January 2017 I was happy to see that the village store was nonetheless undertaking fantastic organization. Throughout the road, and set again from it, All Saints sits quietly, with no tower to lead you to it from afar.
At first sight, this is a easy, if uneven, minor church, somewhat barn-like in its ancient graveyard. Tall elm trees all over it are residence to jackdaws and rooks their cries fill the air as they wheel above you. A great yew caresses the south of the nave. The contemporary little porch offers no sign that you are about to enter a person of the much more intriguing churches in this section of Suffolk.
As you step down into the sq. south aisle and nave (in simple fact, they surface broader than they are extended!) the 1st point you recognize is a pair of magnificent Norman arches, one about 10 toes to the east of the other, at the base of what was the moment the central tower, even though pretty much no indicator remains of it from the outdoors now. Over and above them, the chancel opens up, its peak accentuating the lowness of the arches which direct into it.
Sam Mortlock argues that All Saints was almost certainly a cruciform church as at Pakenham in west Suffolk, with the south chapel top off from the south-east corner of the nave having up part of what was a south transept. Cautley considered a tripartite arrangement a lot more possible, as at Newton-by-Castle-Acre in Norfolk, mostly on the power of the arches only obtaining mouldings on the western aspect. One particular of the reduce tower home windows can however be observed on the japanese encounter from within the chancel, and seems most curious. A bell rope disappears up into the ceilure. While the western arch only has 1 band of chevrons, the jap arch has two. If you glimpse closely at the nave roof quickly in front of the western arch, you can see traces of paint, evidence of a one particular-time canopy of honour to the now-vanished rood. There is a little selection of medieval and continental glass in the chancel north window, including a superior quality scene of St Bridget feeding the beggars, two jolly mermaids and what show up to be the arms of the Borough of Wonderful Yarmouth.
Edward Hakewill carried out the restoration right here in the 1860s. He is liable for the angels on the wall plate of the nave. The south aisle is just not definitely an aisle at all, much more a completion of the sq. among first nave and south transept. The south transept (if these types of it was) experienced been a chantry chapel, normally referred to as the Bavents Chantry. Lavers, Barraud & Westlake provided the glass for Hakewill’s west window, as nicely as a scaled-down lancet on the east facet of the south transept, but the woodwork in the church is relatively additional latest, and an exciting tale pertains to it.
Like several other Suffolk church buildings, which includes Waldringfield throughout the estuary, a loved ones dynasty of vicars was liable for the Anglican revival in this parish. These ended up the Darlings, James pere et fils. They held this living for 80 decades, concerning 1859 and 1939. The father oversaw Hakewill’s restoration of what had turn into a in the vicinity of-derelict church. The son, who took more than in 1893, had a enthusiasm for woodcarving. He taught his parishioners the talent at evening courses in the village faculty. Between them, the villagers generated the benches, font deal with, organ scenario, chapel monitor and reredos. If you search at the bench finishes, you will uncover James Darling’s pet pet, and some other not likely animals like a beaver, a snake, a squirrel and a penguin. A topped figure with a rosary on the poppyhead of one bench possibly signifies the Blessed Virgin, and a seated cleric with a smile on his face is most likely James Darling himself. The pulpit is Darling’s memorial. The workshop’s bench ends can be located in fifty percent a dozen other east Suffolk churches.
The east window is a fairly sombre affair, also by Lavers, Barraud & Westlake, displaying the little ones coming to Christ when angels try out and display what Charity seems to be like. The parish’s most famed treasure, the 15th century Eyke critical, is now in the British Museum. Its wards are formed to make the term IKE, an option type of the village identify. I was let down to explore that the doorlock has been improved considering the fact that, but I suppose retention of the first would have created this the most straightforward of all churches to crack into. A fibre-glass duplicate hangs on the wall.
It pleases me to come back again here. It is now seventeen years given that my very first go to, on New Year’s Day 2000, I was the 1st man or woman of the century* to indication the visitors ebook, and it was satisfying to convert back to it on my return in 2006 and 2010. But I have remaining it as well prolonged, and on my most new stop by in 2017 I located that a new visitor’s book experienced taken the spot of the outdated 1. Ah well. Back in 2000, the awesome lady practising the organ experienced informed me that one of the Reverend Darling’s daughters was however alive, and often visited to see yet again her father’s and grandfather’s handiwork. In 2010 I wondered if she even now did, but now some seventeen decades have passed, and I suppose she does not any far more.
*Yes, I know that pedants will inform you that the 21st Century commenced on New Several years Working day 2001. Do not pay attention to them.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-01-29 18:47:10
Tagged: , Eyke , East Anglia , suffolk , church , churches , nikon , d5300
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